Episodes

In this episode, I talk about a fundamental shift in our marketing strategy at Nerdlab Games. We’re moving away from focusing primarily on short-term, ad-driven clicks and putting much more emphasis on building long-term fans and communities around our games. I’ll share why I believe this shift matters, what we’re changing, and how we want to build relationships with players that go far beyond a single purchase. If you want to check out the first implementation of that shift, you can signup for ...

100 episodes! In this special anniversary episode, I take a look back at the journey that started in 2018. From nervously recording my first interviews to building Nerdlab Games and working on games like Mindbug, Agent Avenue, and Final Titan. I’ll share some things I’ve never talked about before, the biggest lessons I’ve learned about game design, development, and publishing, and how my focus has changed over the years. And most importantly: what’s next? For me, for Nerdlab Games, and for this ...

In today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through the results of a Mindbug survey we ran last year, and explain how those insights shaped some of the most important design decisions we made for the future of Mindbug. This is a great example of why I believe it’s incredibly important to involve your players or at least your players feedback in key design decisions. If you’re a game developer or if you work in any field where you serve passionate customers, I think actively including them in your...

In this episode, we explore why some card games thrive for years while others disappear after just a few releases. We break down the key drivers behind long-term success in card games: from metagame evolution and strategic depth to community engagement, competitive play, and emotional connection. And then we make it practical: How can these principles be applied to designing our own card games? What design choices create lasting replayability, variety, and meaningful decisions? If you’re de...

Welcome back to The Nerdlab, where we transform our love for gaming into powerful game designs and uncover the secrets of what makes games truly shine. In this special episode, things are a little different: Marvin hands over the microphone to Chris, who takes the lead as interviewer. Why? Because today, the spotlight is on Christian Kudahl, co-designer of Mindbug and long-time creative partner at The Nerdlab. While Marvin has been busy building the publishing company behind the scenes, Christ...

Chris, a podcast listener and fellow game designer, reached out wondering why there hadn’t been any new episodes lately. He generously offered to take on the role of interviewer for this episode, giving listeners an exclusive behind the scenes look at what’s been happening at Nerdlab Games over the past two years. We are talking about Game Design processes and our tasks and role as a small publishing company. I am incredibly grateful to Chris for the idea and for bringing this episode to life.

In this episode, I discuss with Richard Garfield, Skaff Elias and Christian Kudahl about the design process of Mindbug Beyond. Support our Current Kickstarter Campaign for Mindbug Beyond: Mindbug Beyond Kickstarter Campaign

Hello everyone and happy new year. Today we have January 2nd and I have a special guest today. It is my co-designer and friend Christian Kudahl. Hi Christian and welcome to the show. Today we’re going to be looking back at the year 2022, and reflecting on our very first Kickstarter campaign for the game, Mindbug. For those who may not know, Mindbug was a project that was funded on Kickstarter in 2021. For us, the Kickstarter campaign was a huge success, raising almost $400,000 from more than ...

It's been over half a year since I recorded the last podcast episode. That's definitely far too long. I hope that I will be able to record new episodes much more often in the future. Because I really missed being able to exchange ideas with other game designers and to delve deeply into specific game design activities in order to prepare for an episode. So what do I want to talk about today? A lot has changed for me in the last 6 months. I am in the middle of the transition from a wannabe game de...

A lot has happened in the last couple of months in the Nerdlab. Christian and I got the chance to work with industry veterans Richards Garfield and Skaff Elias on our Game Mindbug. In this podcast episode, I talk about the things I have been working on with regards to Game Design, Game Development and Publishing. I also talk about Mindbug and why I think the game is special. The game got officially announced just recently and will be available at Essen Spiel this year. If you go to Essen, plea...

Today we have a great guest on the show and I am really excited to learn more about his game. He is the designer of AracKhan Wars, a strategy card game that just got successfully funded with more than 100k on Kickstarter last month. It’s a highly strategic game about card placement, positioning, and maximizing the potential of card combos. At first glance, it reminded me of Magic mixed with Summoner Wars and Warhammer (all of those are games I really love). In addition, the game also has incredi...

Today we have a great guest on the show. Gary Dworetsky is the designer and publisher of the very successful game Imperium: The Contention. The game has an incredible 8.1 rating on board game geek and is a 4-X card game about deploying fleets, moving ships into the right position, and then crushing your opponent in space combat. In addition, he is also currently working on a title that is desired by many many people. Most of you know Slay the Spire as the pioneer of roguelike deckbuilding games...

This week I had the chance to talk to Carlo Bortolini, a fellow game designer (Memoarr and Riftforce). Riftforce is a dueling card game that involves factions, drafting, combos, and different strategies. All the good stuff I love so much about card games. So I was very happy to talk to Carlo Bortolini and learn more about the design process of Riftforce. We found out that both of our games (Riftforce and Mindbug) share many aspects of their design philosophy. But that is only one of the many top...

This week I have the incredible honor of hosting one of the best game designers in the world. He has designed countless games and it doesn’t seem like he is going to stop :-) And the majority of them are incredibly successful. For example he designed Kingdomino, Five Tribes, Seven Wonders Duel, Shadows over Camelot,

This week I have the honor of hosting Tom Lehmann, […]

This week follow up on the topic of E-Mail Listbuilding as a Game Designer. Last week I talked about why you should start an E-Mail List. This week the focus is on how to do it. In the podcast, I cover the high-level process of: Creating a Lead Magnet and a nice Pitch Setting

This week we tackle a very important topic. Last week I talked about why it is important to pput yourself out there and be active in the board game community. This week I am going to talk about why I think it is super important to create a relationship with the people you get in

Today's episode will be a bit different from the other episodes. Usually, I interview experienced game designers or do a lot of research about a topic before I cover it here on the show. Today it's more of a discussion I'd say. But since I'm alone today calling it a discussion is kind of